Many times people contact us not because their dog is barking (sometimes they don’t even have a dog) but because a neighbour’s dog is.

It is hard for some people to diagnose the true cause or root of the problem when it comes to barking and so it goes on untreated.

Many times an owner does not know their dog is barking or the extent of the barking as the dog may only bark when they are not home.

Barking is the number one behavioural problem in dogs worldwide, it causes many neighbour disputes and sometimes triggers people to bait barking dogs as they just cannot put up with it any longer and feel the owner is doing nothing about it.

I have written a letter that we have added to our Free Downloads section.

This can be downloaded free and dropped into a neighbour’s mailbox or even posted to them.

It lets them know they have a barking dog and offers them some help from us to fix it.

This saves you the task of approaching your neighbour and keeps you anonymous.

Download it free now, right here!

This can be downloaded FREE in PDF format or read on our site here.

 READ THE FULL STORY HERE

Over the weekend, the doting owner of two young lab mixes purchased Cocoa Mulch from Target to use in their garden. The dogs loved the way it smelled and it was advertised to keep cats away from their garden. Their dog (Calypso) decided the mulch smelled good enough to eat and devoured a large helping.  She vomited a few times which was typical when she eats something  new but wasn't acting lethargic in any way.  The next day, Mom woke up and took Calypso out for her morning walk. Halfway through the walk, she had a seizure and died instantly.  

Although the mulch had NO warnings printed on the label, upon further investigation on the company's web site,  

This product is HIGHLY TOXIC to dogs and cats.

Cocoa Mulch is manufactured by Hershey's, and they claim that "It is true that studies have shown that 50% of the dogs that eat Cocoa Mulch can suffer physical harm to a variety of degrees (depending on each individual dog).  However, 98% of all dogs won't eat it."

Snopes.comsite gives the following information:http://www.snopes.com/critters/crusader/cocoamulch.asp  

Cocoa Mulch, which is sold by Home Depot, Foreman's Garden Supply and other garden supply  stores contains a  lethal ingredient called 'Theobromine'. It is lethal to dogs and cats. It smells like chocolate and it really attracts dogs. They will ingest this stuff and die. Several deaths already occurred in the last 2-3 weeks.

Theobromine is in all chocolate, especially dark or baker's chocolate which is  toxic to dogs. Cocoa bean shells contain potentially toxic quantities of theobromine, a xanthine compound similar in effects to caffeine and theophylline.  A dog that ingested a lethal quantity of garden mulch made from cocoa bean shells developed severe convulsions and died 17 hours later. Analysis of the stomach contents and the ingested cacao bean shells revealed the presence of lethal amounts of theobromine.  

This information is supplied without confirmation by K9 Pro-The K9 Professionals

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I had been looking forward to attending this conference before the news even broke publically. I was delighted to sponsor the event because things like this are just so good for our industry and the dog world.

Steven Lindsay has always been high on my list of world recognised Dog Trainers, yes dog Trainers. Whilst many would label Lindsay as a Scientist, he refers to himself as a dog trainer, and says it in a manner that reflects the respect he has for trainers.

Leading up to the event, some other great lures for me where to spend some time with my peers, some of them I just had spoken to on the phone a number of times are talked via email and I guess I would call them modern friends, you know the ones you have but maybe have not seen or spent a lot of time in the company of, but know them well enough to be mates!

On the final couple of weeks, I had some of my clients and trainers that refer to me show interest in the Conference, so I called up Boyd Hooper, CEO of the NDTF and we worked out a great way to help some of these people get in a group price, the K9 Pro group if you like!

I arrived early Saturday morning to register and get my group all sorted, I found Boyd running around heavily engrossed in the final steps, it was great to catch up with Boyd, a great guy who is a straight talker and who has always looked after me like gold, this was no exception.

I spent some time with the girls from the Conference Team, NDTF members and got our people registered and in, as always these guys were great fun to work with and professional at the same time, the NDTF produces some great people.

On with the day we went and the Conference was on, Steven Lindsay took the stage after his introduction and he started explaining his Cynopraxis theory, it takes a while to settle into the way he speaks, part dog trainer, part mad scientist and a big part, true dog lover.

Having studied Lindsay’s books, I was not surprised at the depth he spoke and his method of speaking, I enjoyed his slightly off key rants and whilst I cannot say I learned anything, it reminded me of things I had forgotten and new ways of explaining things.

The breaks were equally as enjoyable as I got to chat with mates who are fellow trainers and behaviourists from all over, including Boyd Hooper, Steve Austin, Glen Cook, Judi Buchan, Jane Harper, Trish Harris, Lynn Tranter, Grant Teeboon, Jeff Smith (Customs/AQIS) Damian – K9 Lifestyle and that was just the first break!

There were some great dog demonstrations; Steve (Austin) even had his Rottweiler King there doing a bite work demo, nice dog, there were DCS (Dept Corrective Services) Mobile phone sniffing dogs, videos of dogs tracking Fox scats, all round it was a very professionally run, world class event.

I was one of the few that went to dinner on the harbour with Steve Lindsay, an NDTF after party so to speak, I discussed with Steve Lindsay some of my own research and it fell close to the lines of where he had left off with pre Pulse Inhibition. He was in high demand and I think he got to eat only a few mouthfuls of dinner over 4 hours (tough luck Steve happens to me every time lol). Steve Lindsay and I both agreed to carry out some research together on my theory and see where it takes us, I look forward to emailing him and hearing his results compared to mine.

I have heard from a number of people who have all confirmed that anyone he touched felt he was a very genuine, caring, sensitive and educated genius.

I heard / read some reviews on the event that indicated that they thought Steve Lindsay concentrated too much on ethics; there was a lot of him telling us to make sure that we do no harm to dogs and him becoming outwardly emotional talking about just how much he loves and respects all dogs and dog trainers, I heard of an article released when the conference was on, on how we had brought someone from the USA to teach us how to punish our dogs. This is a pathetic grab at headlines and garbage media.

The only criticism actual attendees had was he was too concerned with dogs well being at the same time he was promoted by another as a punisher. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

All in all it was a World Class Event; it reminds me once again why I fully support the NDTF, a group dedicated to represent all styles of training, guys you have done a fantastic job.

If your training organisation is not part of the NDTF, I think you need to ask yourself why...

NDTF Membership Benefits

We would like to thank everyone for your support and nominations in this years MDBA awards.

Steve has been nominated for The Best Dog Trainer of the Year award!

There have been many testimonials sent in to the awards from current and past clients which have made this nomination possible and we thank you all. It is always wonderful to hear how happy our clients are with the services we provide and the results they have or are currently getting with their dogs.

We are very pleased with the nomination and believe it is testament to the hard work and effort both Steve and his clients put into their dogs everyday!!!

Thank you again for your support, we really appreciate it.

The Team at K9 Pro

Hi all and thanks for all your support so far, we wanted to offer a big discount on opening so we could give you all plenty to celebrate and it seems you have celebrated big lol! We expected our equipment sales would be great, but they have been SUPER!

This is great news for us all because, there are a number of products that we would like to make available to our customers, but we found them a little too expensive to offer. We have negotiated a new deal based on bigger minimum quantities and this enabled us to get the prices down. So expect some new products and expect to see us rolling back many of our prices!

STOCK LEVELS
We stock everything we sell before we advertise it, except custom made items like Bite Suits etc. When we had a meeting about what levels we should carry for the launch of K9 Pro, we aimed high, but you guys have shocked us on some products and we have run out of stock.

We have the option to set our website to not sell you a product if it has ran out of stock, but we have not enabled that option fully as yet, as we are normally only a few days away from replenishing our stocks so would rather not inconvenience you by not allowing you to complete your order, just for a couple of days.

There are some products though that take us a little longer to get so with those, we have enabled this option rather than sell you something that is a couple of weeks away.

If you click on an item that says “this product is not available at this time”, don’t hesitate to email us and we will allocate some of the stock on its way to you.

NEW ITEMS
There were some items we had ready to go at the time of launch but we had not added them to our site for one reason or another.

Here are some new items to look at: -

Discounts / Bulk Buys

Dogtra 7100H and 7102H (two dog unit) Essential Pack

HS QUICK RELEASE Prong Collar

Prong Collar PRO TRAINERS KIT

Consult Payment Options

Training in Drive, Nicoles new way forward!

NEWSLETTER
We should be sending out our first Newsletter before the end of March, there will be some new website additions there too, like our Wall of Fame. This is a section were very proud of, it will highlight previous K9 Force / K9 Pro clients that have done very well! You will get to read their story, see pics of them with their dogs and hear Steve’s report as the dog progressed through training!

Hall of Famers are very special people who have accomplished amazing tasks!

The newsletter will also have a report from Steve on one of the dogs he has worked with in the month, giving an insight to the problems encountered and results gained. Something there for everyone!

We also will be using the newsletter member list to communicate to our members on a priority system; this means that when we are going to run a special, you will get notified by email first, same as when we release workshop dates, new product reviews and any breaking news!

It will become a news item after that and released to the public after that!

EVENTS
As per our upcoming events page, you will see we are planning a Training workshop in Adelaide to be run on the 8^th May 2010. We will also be releasing 4 only private consults to be run on Friday 7^th May. These consults will be two hours long and will sell out fast I am sure.

We have strong interest from our Melbourne supporters and we intend to run a workshop and private consults in Melbourne, sometime after July. Steve says Melbourne is too cold in July, and we are expecting a very special delivery in June that Steve needs to be here for!

So keep an eye out for details about Melbourne.

People from Sydney, we haven’t forgotten about you, the high demand keeps Steve very busy interstate and we will be setting up something special soon as we have some time, then it will be back to Queensland!

FINALLY
Last but not least, we have the opportunity to supply you with products from the Veterinary range, such as heartworm tablets, flea treatments etc. We will be at some stage asking you to complete a poll on what brands and products you use and what you pay for them. This will give us an idea on which products and brands to offer, and what price we need to get suppliers down to so that you will be buying these “essentials” at wholesale rates.

We hope you like our site as much as we do, we have had so much positive feedback, were very grateful for your positive comments.

The Team at K9 Pro – The K9 Professionals!

Another reason for change is that, we have wanted to provide even better services in the way of Articles, Case studies and recognition of the great work our clients have done, our old site wasn’t capable of giving us those options so it had to go. You will already see a large number of new articles, client stories too and we will be running a new promotion called our Wall of fame! This is where people who get results will be added to this wall as recognition for results!

You will also notice the huge range of products in our online shop, we have been selling the majority of these products for a long time, through two additional avenues to K9 Force, our commercial range of Tug Toys, training aids and other items were reserved for  our resellers only which meant a K9 Force client would have to go elsewhere to buy K9 Force products.

This is no longer the case, we still wholesale equipment and have kept all our resellers and are interested in expanding our reseller list too(see here for details), but we are also offering almost all of our lines right here on one site! All three outlets have now joined into one.

You will also see that all the products we are listing meet the same high quality standards as all our equipment does, we still have our range of leads made for us, along with many other products we designed and have made to our specifications.

We hope that this advancement will raise our ordering capacity from our suppliers which will in turn allow us to offer you better prices, 24/7 online ordering and more great products!

We will be offering more Distance Learning Packages based on what people want to learn and our testing and development with people and dogs, as we always have. We have upgraded our video systems here so that when people link us to their video’s, we can do many things that were just not possible before, such as relay one section over another to clarify what went wrong or right, clip sections out of the video and highlight body language etc and all in Hi DEF!

We will be continuing to test new products and we will be reporting the findings to our readers, so if you’re a manufacturer and you would like us to test your product, contact us, it is a free service!

It has always been on our list of things to do, to join forces with one Rescue Organisation and give them much needed help and support, as well as help dogs that have been in the past labelled a no chance case. Our Sponsor a dog scheme will enable you and us to offer help and support and give no chance cases, a chance...

We will be running an eligibility system in which people in rescue can apply to be our “K9 Pro Rescuer”, we will likely be choosing one only and that person or group will be the benefactor of the Sponsor a Dog funds plus as much help as we can give them!

Later in the year both the programs will be set up and we will be reporting on it here and in our newsletters.

Did we mention Newsletter? Yep we are aiming to get a newsletter out every month, these will have information on training and behaviour, Case Studies, report from rescue, product specials – test results and pre announcements.

This is where you come in! Regardless if you have been on any of our mailing lists before or you’re an active client now or doing a Distance Learning Package, we need you to register for our E Newsletter in the box in the left menu bar.

We want to tidy up our mailing lists and now is a great time.

Registration is free and you can unsubscribe any time so REGISTER NOW!

The last four years we have been heavily involved in helping people that have had their dogs declared dangerous by Council Law. We are delighted at the results we have been able to achieve with our dedicated clients and want to help more people, because every week, we hear of a dog that has been Euthanized due to a destruction order being imposed or the dog being declared dangerous and the owner was at a loss of what to do.

We have posted an article on our website linked by scrolling text on the front page to be able to provide people some early guidance to minimize the effect that an incident with their dog may have. The message is though, don’t wait, act instantly. If you know anyone who has an aggressive dog or a dog that has been declared dangerous or is about to be, guide them to this article.

We appreciate the massive effort many people invest to help their dogs, especially the ones who travel for many hours or sometimes days to get to us so we may help their dog, we have listed services we have had but didn’t have the time to advertise, such as our High Intensity Training Packages and we have also made it easy to stay near us as we have locked down some great accommodation, dining and boarding options too!

For those who can’t travel for one reason or another but have been loyal to us for many years or just need our help for the first time, something for you here too!

• Phone Consults are a standard service now, get information fast, anywhere!
• More Distance Learning Packages. Coming soon!
• More Consults Interstate! As many as we can manage!
• Workshops too!

We also have a list of Trainers and behaviorists that we refer interstate people to, we will be screening new trainers and behaviourists and adding them to our list, so we can refer people to them.

Whilst these trainers and behaviourists will receive this service free from us, they will need to provide a high quality service or the referrals will stop.

So take a look through our site, enjoy the articles, new look and style, take advantage too of the ACCROSS THE BOARD SPECIAL! It is a huge 20% off and we hope we will be able to constantly cut prices to you and get our every day prices down to close to this heavily discounted price in the near future!

There has been a lot of work, planning and testing to get us ready for these changes; the K9 Pro Team have worked tirelessly as has our web designer who must never sleep!

We hope you love the changes as much as we love them, we wanted to give you something that you will enjoy, value and is a resource and knowledge base you can use and refer others too, because hopefully, like us, you EXPECT RESULTS!

Thank you very much to those who have supported us for the years in the past with K9 Force Professional Dog Training, by turning up over and over again to our workshops, referring people to us constantly, sending thankful emails, cards, letters and gifts, we are humbled at your positive thoughts and generosity, we really do, appreciate it!

The Team at K9 Pro – The K9 Professionals!

EXPECT RESULTS!

All these events can be stressful and pose a great risk to your dog’s life, either in terms of freedom or perhaps being euthanized.

In all cases, don’t hesitate, call us the minute that any aggressive event occurs, don’t let it play out & see what happens, calling us is free and we will advise you what your best steps will be from where aver you are.

The situation and the chances of coming out of this favourably reduce every day that goes by!

You need to act instantly, call us now!

The Dangerous Dog Declaration is the Councils way of dealing with all dog related incidents, by declaring a dog dangerous and imposing the restrictions laid out in the declaration, Councils are showing a duty of care to the people within the council’s area.

The term “Dangerous” unfortunately conjures up many an emotional picture in people’s minds; this is often where conflict arises because people do not feel their dog is “dangerous”.

The term dangerous is a name for the declaration rather than a descriptive term and that is the first thing that most owners need to come to terms with. I honestly feel that it could have been named with a little more thought.

What does the term dangerous mean in the Companion Animals Act?

COMPANION ANIMALS ACT 1998 - SECT 33

Meaning of “dangerous”

33 Meaning of “dangerous”

(1) For the purposes of this Division, a dog is "dangerous" if it:

(a) has, without provocation, attacked or killed a person or animal (other than vermin), or

(b) has, without provocation, repeatedly threatened to attack or repeatedly chased a person or animal (other than vermin), or

(c) has displayed unreasonable aggression towards a person or animal (other than vermin), or

(d) is kept or used for the purposes of hunting.

(2) A dog is not, for the purposes of subsection (1) (d), to be regarded as being kept or used for the purposes of hunting if it is used only to locate, flush, point or retrieve birds or vermin. "Vermin" for the purposes of this subsection includes small pest animals only (such as rodents).

The inherent problem we face is that the terms “attacked” and “threatened” are completely subjective. We have consulted with owners that have had their dog declared dangerous when the dogs actions were to rush up to another dog. Because the other dog became frightened and ran away, this was considered an attack. Another when a dog chased a cat across the road!

When a dog is involved in an incident, perhaps your dog has ended up in a fight or scuffle at a dog park, or just chased a small dog that ended up fearing the chase, the other owner may go to council and report the incident in which the council decides to declare your dog dangerous. Keep in mind that you have not been contacted as yet, but the intent to declare your dog has been made in your absence purely from the other owners report.

The Officer must contact you and notify you of his or her intensions, you have 7 days in which to appeal. Officers must consider every appeal but of course you pleading that your dog is a sweetheart won’t be of any help. An effective strategy laid out will at times and in some cases defer the council officer and give you some breathing space to take some more action.

In every case, some behaviour modification and or training should be completed.

This is why your best chance at escaping a declaration on your dog is speak to a professional that has relevant and recent experience with these types of cases. So if you know of a Qualified Behaviour Specialist in your area that has experience with these declarations, call them now, if you don’t know one call us. There is no cost for this phone call.

It goes without saying that if you can avoid any declarations, council orders or events that involve council, do.

Some points to remember

If your dog is involved in something that may get it reported: -

Keep your dog in your yard or at least on leash at all times until you get advice from us.

Don’t antagonise, fight or argue with the other person involved in the incident, in fact it is best not to contact them until you get advice from us. If you are cornered by them advise that you are seeking professional help for your dog.

Strongly avoid situations that may end with your dog being involved in another incident.

If someone from council should pop in to see you and your dog, by all means discuss the matter with them without your dog present and advise them that you are in the process of getting an independent temperament assessment of your dog by a Qualified Behaviourist. Do not allow the council officer to see your dog.

Don’t wait until one more step progresses, call right away, the earlier we intervene, the better your chances are. Each day that passes gives us less and less to work with. Regardless of how small or large the incident has been, or how far through you are, we can help you in some way.

What an owner must comply with if their dog is Declared Dangerous. Download Here.